2010 US Census thread because we can't move forward until you mail it back

This is a thread where we talk about the 2010 US census. It only happens once every 10 years. Extremely important in determining funding for like a bajillion things.

A couple of weekends ago I saw the Mayor of Chicago lecturing a group gathered to celebrate Chinese New Year at a local city college.

I see commercials and hear radio spots and surveys are being mailed out in March.

US Census 2010: what will you tell us? That people are shocked to receive mail?

Also: their jobs section is in comic sans whereas the rest of the site is in more average everyday typeface (can't name it, sorry)

feel the power
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/the_state_worker/Census_Bureau_seal.svg.png

http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/boundaries/IMAGES/table2usreps.gif

http://www.watan.com/en/images/stories/2010Census.jpg

Census #1: 1790
results: http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1790.html
thanks, internet ca 2010

One of my friends in my knitting group is working for the local Census office. She brought us free swag!!

The information found in the 1790 census is as follows.
1. Name of head of family
2. Number of free white males 16 and up, including heads of families
3. Number of free white males under 16
4. Number of free white females including heads of families
5. Number of all other free persons, except Indians not taxed
6. Number of slaves

It was conducted on August 2, 1790. It showed that 3,929,326[1] people were living in the United States of which 697,681 were slaves, and that the largest cities were New York City with 33,000 inhabitants; Philadelphia, with 28,000; Boston, with 18,000; Charleston, South Carolina, with 16,000; and Baltimore, with 13,000. Census records for Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, and Virginia were lost sometime between 1790 and 1830.

i took the test to be a census worker and aced it (not that hard to do), but they never called me back.

i worked for a special census once. not as a door-to-door enumerator, but as a crew leader for a district. i reviewed the district's enumerators' questionnaires for completeness, and it was basically up to me whether to tell them to go back and get the answers we still needed (if they were brought back to me with inconsistencies, or blank due to refusals/strikeouts) or just go out and try and take care of business myself. loved every minute, best job EVER. $15/hr, ridiculously generous mileage compensation while out in the field + driving to/from the office, and the best part was we were the only ones accountable for our own hours; director would sign off on literally whatever anyone put down on their timesheets, just so long as it wasn't more than 40 hrs/week.

plus, we got official government-issue U.S. Dept of Commerce photo ID badges. laminated and everything.

oh man that's awesome. what kind of special census was it?

how do other countries do their national censuses?

it was the 2006 special census of a certain arkansas town - how it works is, cities can request that the dept of commerce come out and do an inter-term census if they believe their population has grown significantly since the last official census. if it has, the census is on the feds. if it hasn't, city's gotta pick up the tab. (we made good.)

oh and our makeshift regional office was actually the former on-site office for an abandoned poultry processing plant. dank, mildewy, piece of shit little space we worked out of for those few amazing months. one disgruntled employee, near the end of the census, in an attempt to try and sue the federal government for unsafe working conditions, took some photos of a grip of nasty mold growing on the ceiling in one part of the building - she was fired in an office meeting the next morning

what did the city do with the stats?

so is it true that a number of census workers are killed during each census?

what did the city do with the stats?

mostly just feel good about them, but the department of commerce also used them to market themselves to prospective companies as a "thriving" community

so is it true that a number of census workers are killed during each census?

wasn't that kentucky murder ruled a suicide? i imagine the rate of census homicides are about on par with that of postal worker homocides, but i dunno. no real reason to be scared though imo - your badge ~is~ laminated, after all

er, not department of commerce, CHAMBER of commerce

I feel like a dork for looking forward to this to the giddy extent that I am. First census!

aside from the 10 census workers ritually sacrificed every time the census is conducted, i don't think there are any formal killings. some incidental ones, possibly.

hey, abbott, you're a dork among dorks. this is exciting! were you not around in 2000?

i even remember 1990. that was during my "ellis island phase" so counting people was interesting to me.

we should get lil "☑ I Counted" stickers like the "☑ I Voted" ones

In 2000 I was 17, just young enough to miss it.

Filled it out!

I filled mine out, too, this afternoon. I was surprised how very little information they wanted. I thought they asked for your religion.

There's been a census ad on the back of the fortunes in my fortune cookies the last 3 times I've gotten them!

it seems like the ads/hype for the census has revolved around 'this will get us money for SCHOOLS and ROADS' and not 'YOU MIGHT GET ANOTHER REPRESENTATIVE FOR THE HoR AND THEREFORE U MAYBE NOT HAVE AN OLD WHITE REPRESENT YOU AND MAYBE U GET SOMEONE WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR GENERAL PREDICAMENT...' correct me if I'm wrong w/ this observation. I mean, granted, your faith in democracy might not make the idea of another representative worth your while, but still...

You're right, and I agree that it's pretty sad that they're selling participation based on some tertiary benefit. It would be nice if they could just say, "Alright guys, head count!" and have everybody participate, but that's just not the case.

Personally, I'm a geek for seeing the numbers change on the City Limits signs, but that's not likely to even net a 25% response rate…

I took the test to get a gig for this back in January, they never called me back.

xxp i was thinking baout that - the census doesn't verify the citizenship of respondents, which apparently bothers the cranky anti-immigrant faction of cities like prescott, arizona, because they don't want illegal immigrants to boost their district's funding/likelihood of additional representation, since according to the article they'd rather undocumented immigrants just be deported. but the census also doesn't verify the validity of responses, at least as far as i know (does it?). so, i'm wondering, if these people are truly not interested in the potential benefits of additional heads being counted, is that enough to stop them from fraudulently maxing out their forms by listing not only themselves, but also imaginary residents with whom they share their domicile?

anyway, mailed mine back today, maybe now we can finally move forward already

i mean it's like if you're gonna be racist, as least be racist against immigrants who live in OTHER districts

shh iij, i am still trying to figure out why sex sexual didn't get a callback

filled out the form today, will send it off in the morning! my answers were so boring -- two-person household, white/non-hispanic male and female. the form had room for twelve people in one household!

such a typical bureaucratic waste of ink to ask people for both their DOB and age in years

prob gonna riot

it seems like the ads/hype for the census has revolved around 'this will get us money for SCHOOLS and ROADS' and not 'YOU MIGHT GET ANOTHER REPRESENTATIVE FOR THE HoR AND THEREFORE U MAYBE NOT HAVE AN OLD WHITE REPRESENT YOU AND MAYBE U GET SOMEONE WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR GENERAL PREDICAMENT...' correct me if I'm wrong w/ this observation. I mean, granted, your faith in democracy might not make the idea of another representative worth your while, but still...

this is surprising? for ads to speak the simplest language in order to reach the most people? what's easier to understand: SCHOOLS AND ROADS or that other thing you said? of course they're gonna say schools and roads. same reason they say "this smelly new deodorant will make beautiful women want to touch you!"

the social work students at my school are raising awareness by visiting classes, handing out tote bags, and doing 10 minute presentations explaining what the census is. most students have no idea why they're being asked about who lives in their house, and they're really paranoid (some aren't legal). they haven't come to my classes yet, but i'm curious what they'll say.

got my form today

We got ours too!! Have never filled out before, excited tbh.

Got it last night, returned it this morning, I have done my part for the continuation of American society. Or something.

Thanks to you, Mr. Raggett, California is allowed schools and roads.

schools and roads for everyone!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2793/4440127957_cf1b708ccd.jpg

not the best picture of me, but it's the best picture of my 2010 census form yet

Oh hell yes, I better get one of me & my historical enabling of schools + roads before I mail that shit out.

ha you can see my bike in the middle of the living room, where it lives

Did it!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marshmallowy/4441473078/sizes/m/

wait where's my photo. trying again.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/4441473078_238446f0a8.jpg

WDYLL being properly accounted for, as stipulated by the Constitution?

I'm going on chatroulette tonight with just a picture of my census form. And my balls.

you have to bring your balls into every thread don't you

Step aside.

not long ago he was talking about the pubes of others, so his balls are a step in the right direction

I was doing no such thing. Believe it or not, that was one of the rare occasions when I didn't bring up the topic myself.

and yet i believe her

you have to bring your balls into every thread don't you

censused

xp I suppose I have earned a lack of credibility in this area.

you were! maybe not overtly discussing in detail but reacting to the pubes of others!

anyway, can we talk about the special latino question?

i also found the language interesting "how many people live/stay in your apartment/house/mobile home"

the two verbs interest me

"special Latino question"...?

plz say it is not "Are you a special Latino? ___ yes ___ no"

my apartment holds three comfortably, seventeen uncomfortably

are you an "angry Latina judge"

Yes ___

No ___

Fuck you, Scalia ___

i also found the language interesting "how many people live/stay in your apartment/house/mobile home"

Yeah, that is a curious verb choice. Does my dead mother in the attic count?

y

Is she comfortable?

it asked very specifically "are you of latino/hispanic descent and if so what kind" and then listed puerto rican, mexican, nicaraguan, etc. then there was a little box asking "are you of 'other' hispanic descent?" and listed colombian, "spaniard" etc.

THEN it asked for my "race" and i was given a chance to say whether i was white, African America/black/Negro, korean, Chinese, Guamanian, etc.

then there was a box for "OTHER"

so basically what I understood is this:

* they are counting latinos
* they are counting if someone is latino + something else
* they don't give you an option to mark if you are [x] race + (something else not latino)

weird, i thought
* they want to know if you are

whoops
ignore that last * point

U+K Walken sketch

http://www.hulu.com/watch/4165/saturday-night-live-census-taker

If they want to know if I am weird, they're going to have to have to be a little more specific.

anyway, can we talk about the special latino question?

i think this is because the census is worried that if the significant population of americans who are latino/hispanic aren't given an option to list that as their ethnicity, they might get tripped up and choose white. from what i understand latino/hispanic isn't listed under the race category, because it's not technically a race. i assume the only reason there isn't also a separate white-race ethnicity disambiguation question for arab-americans is because that's not considered a "significant" population?

limiting people to specific races/ethnicities gets hairy, for sure. they should just provide a world map on the form and say "shade in every region from which you believe you have ancestors" during some particular time period.

function of time period, of course, would be so that everyone doesn't just shade ethiopia

I believe part of the reason for asking such specific questions is so such a map can be made.

right, but i'm saying at this point the accuracy of the map's data is only going to be as good as the question by which the data is obtained

i understand why they're doing it -- i just want to know what they're going to do with the data. are these contortions the work of squeezing people into a box or expanding the box? because squeezing isn't going to get us anywhere.

ps USians can't read maps, duh -- try harder!

It's all so they can round us up into FEMA death camps more efficiently.

oh, i see. well i don't think they're trying to fit people into these boxes one way or another, only make sure the box itself is accurately defined. i guess the purpose of that is so grad students' sociology theses can be as accurate as possible?

The white/non-hispanic vs. white/hispanic vs. non-white/hispanic-or-whatever-else-there-was distinction is one I'm familiar with primarily through seeing it used on Wikipedia. Thank you internet for keeping me up to date with demographic trends!

i like how the questions on the form are:

1) how many people are in your house?

2) How many people are REALLY in your house?

3) REALLY??

what is the legal difference btwn 'black' and 'negro'?

Are those two seperate options (haven't got mine yet)?

Got mine Monday, returned Tuesday morning. Came home to a vaguely "threatening" postcard Tuesday afternoon about returning it OR ELSE. Really?

yup

13 USC Sec. 221
TITLE 13 - CENSUS

CHAPTER 7 - OFFENSES AND PENALTIES

SUBCHAPTER II - OTHER PERSONS

Sec. 221. Refusal or neglect to answer questions; false answers

(a) Whoever, being over eighteen years of age, refuses or willfully neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized officer or employee of the Department of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized officer, to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey provided for by subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself or to the family to which he belongs or is related, or to the farm or farms of which he or his family is the occupant, shall be fined not more than $100.

(b) Whoever, when answering questions described in subsection (a) of this section, and under the conditions or circumstances described in such subsection, willfully gives any answer that is false, shall be fined not more than $500.

Oh I'm surprised by the "threat" just that the sent me the follow-up postcard literally the day after I got my forms. I know it takes like 3 minutes, but still.

There's an add on the bus stop near my work encouraging people to fill out the census form so that Chicago Transit Authority knows how many more buses to add, which hurts me in my feelings area because the CTA just cut a ton of service, including my favorite bus, and no amount of census data is going to change that because we're broke.

That said, I filled out and returned our census form because I am a sucker for doing my civic duty. Also like I said in the Chicago thread, we straight, white, middle-class, married people need to STAND UP AND BE COUNTED.

xxpost There's one checkbox that says "Black, Afr. Amer., or Negro" iirc; I guess it's not really a separate option but there's still some distinction apparently. The one for white just says "White"

Please check one

[ ] I'm white btw

[ ] No homo

i can hear the arguments in the congressional census committee about the black/AfAm/negro language -- they were just trying to cover their bases i'm sure

just like some people say "where do you live" and others say "where do you stay" -- covering their bases

i just would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in those meetings where they hash it all out, including the Special Latino Question of 2010

got my form today, pretty excited

wouldn't you love to see the first draft of this thing? i would.

http://i40.tinypic.com/24ybreb.jpg

nice! i completed my census while 100% sober, but i will say that i felt a bit of giddiness when i was done.

i'm drunk should i do it now

why is this the first time i received a census form? wha happen 1990 & 2000??

Ed, is it going to be like me filing in UK voter registration with the equivalent of 'nobody in here but us chickens'?

mailed mine this morning. woooo

it doesn't have enough questions for my satisfaction!

Blimey, they don't ask for a lot of detail and still, talk radio thinks its an imposition. And why am I getting robocalls to write in that I'm diabetic? Is that a race? Where do I say I'm a Jedi?

suzy, I'm here for the purposes of the census.

you should include a narrative portion about your race/ethnicity

true story on my form underneath the part where it says "THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION" i wrote in "NO, THANK YOU"

there should really be more races to select

why give so much primacy (a separate box) to guamanians or samoans, but nothing to mixed race with no latino? dumb. i just want to know how that happened.

what about germans, irish, greeks, italians, dutch, spaniards

swedes, norges, croats

Because Guam and US Samoa are territories? Seriously would not be for any other reason. xpost

What I don't understand is there is no box for immigration status. I have to fill in the form but I'm not eligible to vote, so if enough people like me fill in a form (and there are many foreign students in Pittsburgh) does pittsburgh get extra representation?

yes indeed, isn't that weird?

maybe they figure that the foreign student population is relatively stable even if the actual students are different people? i also can't imagine there are tens of thousands of foreign students?

like foreign students, children can't vote but their interests are still represented based on the census because they live there

Hooray proving you exist!

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i191/fluxion23/census.jpg

I had a quick look at the website but couldn't find any obvious boldface size 72 information, so anybody know what overseas americans should do? I can't fill it out online, do I need to drop by the embassy?

;_;

WASHINGTON -- Utah Rep. Jim Matheson is pressing to end the Census Bureau's policy of excluding Americans overseas in its once-a-decade headcount.

really wanted to enable history and schools sorry dudes

Thank God for Utah, though.

Inspired by a friend's FB status: how many or you women who live with one or more dudes listed yourself as person one on the census form? *raises hand*

And I totally did it on purpose as a political statement.

my roommate filled ours out while i was at work

received text "what is your ethnicity and your age? census"

hahahaha that guy

saddest part of the experience was that i didn't get to see the look on his face when he received text and found out i am hispanic

xp I hope you are now a 53 year old negro.

after 10 months of struggling with his spanish homework... xp wow

this is a very hoos-oriented census, as it's designed to tell us if you're secretly hispanic

real talk

Today at Goodwill I saw Census forms for people to be counted who do not have an address.

I think the "live/stay" language is because they want to count people who may be staying somewhere on a temporary basis and won't otherwise be counted.

i think this is because the census is worried that if the significant population of americans who are latino/hispanic aren't given an option to list that as their ethnicity, they might get tripped up and choose white.

Wait, but most Latinos *should* be choosing white as their race, right? (Unless they're not, of course -- e.g., many Dominicans, Panamanians, etc.).

The thing that I found most interesting was that "Asian" was not an option for race, but specific Asian nationalities (like Indian, Chinese, etc.) were. I guess it makes sense why the Census would want to break that down, especially since the term "Asian" in the U.S. tends to connote East Asian and so you might have a Pakistani-American who gets confused and decides that they're not actually Asian. But there's a weird implication there that "Chinese" or "Japanese" is a race instead of a nationality or ethnicity, which probably only makes things more confusing for some people. Like, I can imagine a Mexican-American looking at this and thinking "if Chinese is a race, then Mexican is a race" and checking the "Some other race" box.

Inspired by a friend's FB status: how many or you women who live with one or more dudes listed yourself as person one on the census form? *raises hand*

I listed myself as Person 1 only because I'm way more excited about the census than Kr is.

http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/2708/census.jpg

This is what I look like holding my 'person no. 1' status.

You look super fly.

go get you some benefits girl

i don't know why i am paranoid about this, but filled it nonetheless
mailing it tomorrow

I had a twinge of paranoia, too, but then realized that the US gov't already knows my name, address, birthday, and lots more stuff just by virtue of my being a tax paying citizen. Not to mention all the info they have based on the fact that I'm legally married and a licensed attorney and government employee. Comparatively, the census is about as invasive as asking me if I habitually breathe oxygen.

people - govt or otherwise - would easily know more about us from reading ilx than they would from our completed census forms

I have an irrationally negative angry reaction to people who question the census.

I mean, just fill out the fucking form and send it back. I may be naive, but I am assuming that the government has better things to do than freak out about me. Anyway, I think all of the information I disclosed in my census form is on my facebook page.

well jaymc how do you define race?

aren't most latinos (black and non-black) also some type of "amerindian"? if i was latina i wouldn't want to pick white unless i knew i was all spanish. they certainly aren't treated as a "white" category at the moment. but yeah then it gets messy because it really does depend what race means.

i can't look at the special latino question though because i sealed my envelope to mail out tomorrow

Hey you can track the return rates!
http://2010.census.gov/2010census/take10map/

The upper Midwest is shaming us all.

Florida, get your act together.

filling out forms is one of the central tenets of lutheranism

hey will somebody take a moment and copy the questions to this thread so we all can scrutinize them once again, plz?

i was in a conversation with a coworker and really wished there was a place where i could go and look at the exact wording of the questions . . .

oh nevermind i found them at

http://2010.census.gov/2010census/how/interactive-form.php

hmm in the explanation for the part where they ask yr name it's all 'federal law protects the confidentiality . . ."
then in the explanation for the sex question it's all 'also sociologists, economists and other researchers analyze . . ."

is that a contradiction?

not really..........it's still confidential if they don't give out identifying info

filled this out today. was kind of looking forward to a long questionnaire, but it was like four questions and peace out. honestly, i'm disappointed.

i just want future generations of genealogy researchers to know my eating and moviegoing habits. i guess for that they'll have to check ILX.

http://contexts.org/socimages/2010/03/29/the-census-and-the-social-construction-of-race

http://contexts.org/socimages/2010/03/29/race-and-censuses-from-around-the-world

kenan, with the amount of photos you post to the internet, i'm pretty sure the government knows you exist at this point

Super-interesting posts, Jenny. Thanks.

np!

they stratify the asians so thoroughly cause when the us eventually wars with china they'll know who to round up

^.^

kenan, with the amount of photos you post to the internet, i'm pretty sure the government knows you exist at this point

Well, just in case, I did enclose a glossy photo with my census form.

Of my balls.

Actually, I just got my second census form in the mail today. I filled it out, sealed it up, and stuck it in a mailbox. (No balls this time.) I mean, if they fucked up enough to send me two forms, they can figure out how not to count me twice.

Or not! If not, I am helping my community!

probably means you will pay double the taxes

Yeah, I got a second census, too. What does one do?????????

me too. wasteful idiots.

My second form arrived as well.

same

http://www.ktnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12244764

second form came yesterday.

Garcia said forms are not available online, even though the bureau has embraced social networking to help get the word out this year. The bureau began preparing for the 2010 census in 2005-06 and officials did not feel they could guarantee the confidentiality mandated in the process.

“We’re keeping up with the times and sparking a conversation. This spreads awareness to a new segment,” she said. “Confidentiality trumps everything else. In 2020, the Internet might be a thing of the past. Who knows?”

bahaha

Awesome! Yeah I kind of hope Chatroulette is the most internet thing that could possibly exist and from now on it's best to focus on how we're gonna live with regional augmented virtual reality nets.

Actually, I could imagine the Internet breaking back up into seperate national networks someday.

what a disaster for ilx

http://www.censusdiscriminationlawsuit.com/

http://ccrjustice.org/johnson-v-locke

Williamsburg hipsters not submitting their census forms.

ROBERT SMITH: The biggest census procrastinators in New York City happen to live in the most self-consciously hip neighborhood: Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Williamsburg is a magnet for kids just out of college, home of indie bands and ironic mustaches, wacky bikes and skinny jeans, and honest to goodness record stores like this one, Academy Annex.

http://nymag.com/images/2/daily/entertainment/07/07/24_robertsmith_lgl.jpg

SMITH: The Census Bureau is spending $133 million on advertising in dozens of languages telling people that the census is their civic duty, that it helps get federal funding in their communities, but the message isn't sinking in here in Williamsburg.

I just got this today.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i191/fluxion23/community-survey.jpg

Which I will happily fill out, of course. But apparently this only goes out to about three million households, which puts me in a pretty small percentile. Smaller still, since my household has one person in it.

My first thought, considering the identical questions on the first page, was that the Census Bureau was attempting to re-brand the Census form, and thought that maybe someone had been talking to Frank Luntz.

308,745,538!

^^exclamation point, not a factorial obv

I didn't counted in this census btw, so it's at least 308,745,539.

538 is my magical number!
add one and it blows my mind

xp iirc they have an algorithm to account for people like you.

just concerned abt my homegirl who works for a ny congressperson. they are losing two districts, hope she gets to keep her job in two years.

any more news about the special latino section?

Mapping America: Every City, Every Block
Browse local data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, based on samples from 2005 to 2009. Because these figures are based on samples, they are subject to a margin of error, particularly in places with a low population, and are best regarded as estimates.

http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer

For the first time in U.S. history, most of the nation’s babies are members of minority groups, according to new census figures that signal the dawn of an era in which whites no longer will be in the majority.

Population estimates show that 50.4 percent of children younger than 1 last year were Hispanic, black, Asian American or in other minority groups. That’s almost a full percentage point higher than the 49.5 percent of minority babies counted when the decennial census was taken in April 2010. Census Bureau demographers said the tipping point came three months later, in July.

The latest estimates, which gauge changes since the last census, are a reflection of an immigration wave that began four decades ago. The transformation of the country’s racial and ethnic makeup has gathered steam as the white population grows collectively older, especially compared with Hispanics.

The census has forecast that non-Hispanic whites will be outnumbered in the United States by 2042, and social scientists consider that current status among infants a harbinger of the change.

“This is a watershed moment,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University who specializes in family issues. “It shows us how multicultural we’ve become.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/census-minority-babies-are-now-majority-in-united-states/2012/05/16/gIQA1WY8UU_story.html

Apologies if this is being discussed elsewhere -- I just thought it was demographics-related so I stuck it here.